A poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland among 1,256 people finds that a third of the American public believes US forces in Iraq have found weapons of mass destruction. The poll also finds that 22 percent of the respondents think that Iraq used chemical or biological weapons during the war. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 6/14/2003]

PIPA poll results by media source. [Source: PIPA] (click image to enlarge)A poll conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland reveals that a majority of Americans have misperceptions about the Iraq war, and these vary significantly depending on people’s primary source of news. 48% of Americans incorrectly believe that evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda has been found. 22% incorrectly believe that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. 25% incorrectly believe that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq. Overall, 60% have at least one of these misperceptions. For those who believe none of these misperceptions, only 23% support the war. But 86% of those who believe all three misperceptions support the war. Furthermore, those who get most of their news by watching Fox News are much more likely to believe one or more of the misperceptions. Those who get their news mainly from National Public Radio (NPR) or PBS are much less likely to believe one or more of the misperceptions. The other major television networks fall in between. Such variations are also found within demographic subgroups of each audience. Interestingly, the more one watches Fox News, the more likely a person believes such misperceptions, whereas the more a person reads a newspaper, the less likely they are to believe such misperceptions. [Program on International Policy Attitudes, 10/2/2003]

Responding to Vice President Dick Cheney’s dismissal of Americans’ lack of support for the Iraq war with the reply, “So?” (see March 19, 2008), a reporter says to White House press secretary Dana Perino that, contrary to Cheney’s assertions of “fluctuations in the public opinion polls,” “It’s not that there’s been fluctuations in polls; it’s been different degrees of opposition to the war. So is the vice president saying it really does not matter what the American public thinks about the war?” Perino responds: “No, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.… But what he went on to say is that [the] president should not make decisions based on polls.” Another reporter observes: “The American people are being asked to die and pay for this, and you’re saying they have no say in this war?… Well, what it amounts to is you saying we have no input at all.” Perino replies: “You had input. The American people have input every four years, and that’s the way our system is set up.” [White House, 3/20/2008] According to polls conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, 94 percent of US citizens believe that “leaders should pay attention to the views of the people as they make decisions,” and 81 percent say leaders “should pay attention to public opinion polls because this will help them get a sense of the public’s views.” Steven Kull, the director of PIPA, notes: “While Americans do not say that leaders should always follow the will of the public, they do think that American leaders should be considerably more responsive to the people and should even pay attention to polls. Dismissing the public as irrelevant and incompetent only contributes to already low levels of trust in government.” [World Public Opinion (.org), 3/21/2008]

Ordering

Time period

Email Updates

Receive weekly email updates summarizing what contributors have added to the History Commons database

Donate

Developing and maintaining this site is very labor intensive. If you find it useful, please give us a hand and donate what you can.Donate Now

Volunteer

If you would like to help us with this effort, please contact us. We need help with programming (Java, JDO, mysql, and xml), design, networking, and publicity. If you want to contribute information to this site, click the register link at the top of the page, and start contributing.Contact Us